“This is a case for strategy,” stated Morgan. “Now, don’t any of you fellows lose your heads.” Then he hailed the two tacking along the road: “Ahoy! Hey, you!” The American lad who was held in durance by the British sailor looked up and showed something besides the red flag of annoyance in his countenance. “I say, you fellows!” he cried. “Help me out of this, will you?” At this the huge British seaman for the first time appeared to see the four boys on the bank beside the road. “My heye!” he bellowed, standing still, but wagging his head from side to side in a perfectly ridiculous way. “My heye! ’Ere’s a ’ole bloomin’ ship load of ’em. Ahoy, me ’earties, let the heagle scream!” and he led off in a mighty cheer that awoke the echoes of the heretofore peaceful countryside. Frenchy and Ikey, in great glee, sprang up and cheered with him. But the expression in the countenance of the giant’s captive caused the two older Navy Boys to smother their amusement. “That’s the way he’s been going on for four hours--and more,” groaned the captive. “Why! he hung on to my collar all the time we were eating dinner up there at that inn. Made the barmaid cut up his victuals for him. Paid her a shilling for doing it.” “Say, is her name Flora?” Ikey asked, at once interested. “Is that the girl Frenchy was just talking about?” But Torrance quenched him with a hand on his mouth. The situation of the Yankee youth in that giant’s hands seemed more serious than they supposed. The grip of the big hand never relaxed. “’Ere we are, all together, me ’earties,” rumbled the giant. “Hi’m glad to know yuh. Hi’m Willum Johnson, ’im that ’ad a barrow hin the Old Kent Road before the war. Hand jolly well knowed Hi was to the perlice,” confessed the man frankly. “Hit allus took six bobbies to take me hin, lads. Hand now _one_ o’ the bloomin’ hofficers makes me walk a chalkline, haboard ship. Hi tell yuh, ain’t this war terrible?” “That’s what it is,” admitted Frenchy, staring at the man with wide-open eyes. “Come over here and sit down--and tell us all about it,” Whistler Morgan said, beckoning. “Hi’ll go yuh!” declared the giant seaman. “Hand so wull me friend--one o’ the nicest little Yankees Hi ever come across.” The strange Yankee sailor was too much disturbed by his situation to look very closely at Phil and his comrades. The viselike grip of the semi-intoxicated giant on his collar was the principal thing in the victim’s mind. Almost as soon as the British seaman sprawled on the grassy bank his head began to nod and his eyes to close. “He’s going off,” whispered Al Torrance. “You’d think he would,” returned the victim of the over-friendly seaman, in the same tone, “if you could have seen him eat and drink. You never saw such an appetite! He had everybody at that inn standing around and gaping at us.” It was evident that the young sailor felt his position deeply. He was a nice looking fellow, very neat in his dress, and with delicate features.